Death lurking within
by Septdeneuf
Summary: When he's 10 Chris is infected with an incurable demonic disease. Now during his stay in the past he notices familiar symptoms coming on. Please R
1. An unforgettable night

Death lurking within

Chapter 1 – Unforgettable night

A/N: so here I am starting a new story, but I had it in my head for quite a while now I think it needs to be written down, since I've finished Frustrated, so enjoy.

Time: Parts in 2014: unchanged future. Parts in the past: two weeks after Prince Charmed

Disclaimer: No I do not own Charmed and probably never will.

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- had the weird feeling t Prologue -

_2014_

"Leo!"

Both the Halliwell boys heard their mother's desperate scream. They were lying inside their beds in their shared room. They could hear the battle noises from upstairs. Piper always ordered them to stay away when they were fighting demons, because she would handle them. She didn't want to put her babies in danger.

But they both knew that their mom calling for their father meant it was something serious. And they also knew that Leo wouldn't come. Because he never did.

"Can't we do something?", ten year old Chris asked his older brother. He didn't want his mother to handle this alone, even if she had the support of her sisters. He was always scared that someday the three of them would not be enough to fend off one of the attacking demons. He was always scared that he would lose her.

"Mom said we should stay out of it", Wyatt replied. He didn't like that rule either and would also have preferred to do something about this demon thing, but he had confidence in their mother that she and her sisters could handle it.

Before they could decide on doing something or not there was a loud bang in the attic and everything went quiet.

Both of them held their breath for a minute, anxious to hear what had happened. But then they heard familiar footsteps on the stairs leading to the floor were the bedrooms were. First one pair of shoes… then another one… and another one.

Both of them let out a sigh of relief. Their aunts and mother were unharmed, so it apparently hadn't been that big a fight.

Their mother opened the door and smiled at the boys who were staring at her with questioning looks.

"It's ok, we got rid of them, no problem", she reassured her boys. "Now go to sleep, you don't need to worry about it anymore."

Both her children always wanted to help out when there were demon attacks, but she didn't let them because she was afraid they would get hurt. But they always noticed when there was a demon in the house and they would not go to sleep before they weren't entirely certain the demon was gone. She wondered whether other parents had the same problems getting their kids to sleep.

They said "Ok, goodnight mom", at right the same time, as if they were one and Piper decided she could go downstairs to help her sister clean their clothes of the demon's remnants. She closed the door with a smile and left.

Wyatt looked at Chris who was lying on his bed on the opposite side of the room. "What kind of demon do you think it was?", he asked curiously. He was not tired at all and he figured his brother wasn't either.

Chris rolled to face his sibling and said, "It must've been more than one. I'd say two, from the noises they made"

Wyatt raised his eyebrow impressed. Chris always heard these kind of details. And he knew every demon from the book of shadow seemingly, even though in reality he only knew the most common ones.

"So, what do you think they wanted?", Wyatt asked his younger brother.

"I'd say the usual, you know, kill all of us, get our powers, whatever", Chris shrugged. He was pretty bored by the demons that all wanted the same thing. Couldn't they be more creative in their threats so it became more interesting fighting them?

Wyatt nodded in agreement, also bored by the stupidity of the demons. Didn't they realize none of them stood any chance against the Halliwells?

Chris was just going to make a comment about that topic when something distracted him. A demon shimmered in behind him. Chris turned around but before he could do anything, he was hit by a red light emanating of the demon's hands.

Wyatt stared at the demon in shock, and tried to think of what to do. It was not routine having a demon shimmer in their bedroom. With a quick thought he formed an energy ball in his left hand and threw it at the demon, who was vanquished instantly.

He let out his breath in a hiss. He was barely able to control this new power of his, but it seemed to have worked this time without any complications.

He turned around to make a comment about how cool his new power was to Chris, when he saw Chris shaking with a greenish color on his skin.

"Mom!", he shouted and rushed to his brother's bed. Chris let out a soft moan and stared at the ceiling with unfocused eyes. "Chris?", Wyatt asked warily, but he didn't react to his older sibling's presence at all. But he seemed to be in pain.

The door flew open and Piper entered. "What happened?", she asked and looked around sacredly.

"A demon attacked, I vanquished him but he hit Chris with some kind of light and now he doesn't react to me anymore", Wyatt explained breathlessly. Piper pushed him aside and got to Chris' side. She touched his skin which was cold and sweaty. She immediately knew it was really bad.

"Paige", she called and her younger sister immediately orbed in. "Get him to magic school, fast", Piper commanded and Paige took the young boy's hand and orbed out. Piper knew it was useless to call for Leo since he wouldn't come anyway, but the elders that were living at magic school nowadays would definitely help. At least she hoped so, but they had never let her down so far. Wyatt took her hand and orbed the two of them after Paige.

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They had to wait.

For a really long time.

Piper was pacing anxiously in front of the room where the Elders had taken Chris to heal him from whatever there was to heal. But healing never took that long. She glanced at her watch. It had been three hours.

_Three hours?_

Healing was a matter that usually took ten seconds at the most. It had never taken nearly as long and with every passing minute Piper was more scared that it could be something very serious. She tried to calm herself by thinking, _if he was dead, they would've already come out and told us. And besides, he wasn't dead when we brought him here, he was just in pain._ But nothing she thought could really erase that terrible nagging feeling that her little boy could not return to her at the end of the day.

"What the hell is taking them so long?", she asked for what seemed to be the hundredth time. Paige just looked at her and sighed.

The first few times she had tried to soothe her sister by telling her everything was going to be ok, but she had gone over to just shrugging by now.

She looked over at her nephew who looked devastated. Wyatt had told him that he had vanquished the demon but had apparently been too late, since the demon had succeeded in hurting Chris, whatever way he had done it. Ever since then Wyatt hadn't spoken a word and Paige had the feeling he was blaming himself.

To ease his tension she decided to reply to Piper's question now. "Maybe he needs to rest and they just don't want us to disturb him, so they keep us out", she suggested hopefully.

"No, if he needed to rest they wouldn't be in there anymore", Piper said and looked over to the blue painted doors in whose front they all had waited for the previous three hours. She didn't like the hospital part of Magic School. The entire school was painted in warm and friendly colors, but the hospital part was painted all in white and blue which Piper didn't like. But that was probably because it was the hospital part which always gave her a bad feeling. Maybe she wouldn't object to the décor if it wasn't for the fact it was used here.

"They could've orbed out", Paige supposed. She didn't actually believe in what she said, but she felt obliged to be optimistic. Sometimes she hat not thinking positive was somehow triggering bad events happening to her family.

"But they would've informed us. They wouldn't leave us hanging like that", Piper argued. She was shaking a little and was doing worse in covering up her fear by the minute.

Paige almost rolled her eyes at her. She wanted Wyatt not to give up his hope and Piper was not at all helping. But in reality she could understand Piper's fears very well. She herself was worried enough about her nephew and she could only imagine what Piper was going through as his mother.

Phoebe would probably be better at calming Piper down, but she was away at the moment to get some coffee for her and her sisters. Wyatt wasn't allowed to have coffee, so Phoebe would be getting a coke for him.

But then finally the door opened and one of the female elders of whom Piper believed her name was Amanda exited the room.

Piper immediately rushed over to her. "Is he ok? Why did it take so long? It's nothing serious, now is it?", she asked hopefully.

But the look on Amanda's face was telling her otherwise. "Piper", she hesitantly said, "Maybe you'd better sit down"

This was scaring Piper even more. With a look of fear on her face she complied and sat on one of the chairs that were standing in front of the door.

"Well", the elder started who was by now sitting next to the worried mother. "We did everything we could, but…"

"But what?", Piper asked with a terrified look in her eyes. This was sounding really bad. "He's not… is he?", she demanded in fear. She felt unable to pronounce the horrible word that would be the completion to her sentence.

"No… but it's not good", the elder said slowly.

"Well, what is it?", Piper asked, sick of the way the elder was prolonging the conversation. She needed to know whether her baby was fine, and she wanted to know fast.

"Your son has been infected with an incurable disease", the woman told Piper. She was really not happy about being the one to tell the mother. She felt so sorry for all of them.

"You… you mean, incurable for normal people, but you're elders, I mean…", Piper started with desperation evident in her voice.

"No. Completely incurable. And I'm afraid it will one day kill him", the elder stated with a sad look in her eyes.

And Piper could just stare at her in disbelief.

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Book of Shadows entry 

_Cretsa demons_

_A kind of demons who are very rarely seen and don't possess many offensive powers. _

_They can however infect humans with one of the three only magical diseases known to be incurable. The only way to stop the disease's progression is to kill the victim._

_The disease can take over 8 years to reach its final stage, possibly even longer, even if there are no documented cases in which it has taken longer so far._

_The demons can sense when one of their victims is in the final stage of the disease. They wait for their victims to die and then feed off of them. _

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Piper's eyes were fixed at the page of the book for what seemed to be hours.

"You're not serious…", she said and looked up to Amanda who wore a sympathetic look on her face.

"He can't have been… no he can't be infected by one of these creatures", Piper concluded even though she knew she was wrong. He had been infected, there was no other possibility. It explained why it had taken the Elders so long and the picture next to the writing matched Wyatt's description of the attacker.

But Piper refused to believe that this was true. She couldn't wrap her mind around the fact that her son would be killed by this. That magic would kill him, no matter what anyone did.

"I'm really sorry, Piper", the Elder said honestly.

The brunette witch could feel the tears welling up in her eyes. She looked through the open door and saw her youngest child lying there, sleeping. He didn't look as if he had some serious illness, only a little pale but apart from that sleeping peacefully.

"How… how long does he have?", she asked between her sobs. She wasn't able to turn her eyes away from her little angel.

"We managed to slower the progression. He should have about 15 years until the final stage", Amanda explained. She knew that speaking of the "final stage" was silly, since the thing that was really fifteen years away was the end. But she didn't have the heart to say that out loud. The way Piper was looking at her child made it impossible for the elder to say such harsh things.

"Fifteen years…", Piper repeated quietly. Such a short time. She couldn't imagine loosing him then. How could she be able to handle it? What would it be like for him to live with the certainty that he would never be older than 25? Her poor little angel. This was not fair.

He would never have the opportunity to have a family or children, there were so many things he was doomed never to experience. And just because of one stupid demon…

It was absolutely not fair.

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_2003_

It was raining. Chris knew that, without even looking out of the window. _How fitting_, he thought sarcastically while he slammed the cupboard he had just cleared out shut. He turned to check whether he had left any of his items in the small room he had lived in for the past few months and was somewhat happy but also sad that he had done a good job in cleaning it out.

He let himself fall on the couch which was now completely empty whereas it had been full of papers and books just half an hour ago.

He was thrown into a coughing fit that hurt in his lungs and seemed as if it didn't ever want to end. As soon as it stopped he looked at his hand which he had used to cover his mouth with. His mood sank considerably when he saw it to be covered in blood.

So he hadn't misjudged the symptoms. It was true. He wiped his hand clean on its jeans, where the stain was barely visible since it was a very dark shade of blue. It was not like he would have a lot of days left to care about his attire.

He had always known the day would come. After he had been told about his infection he had read every book about the disease he could find, some of which told about the disease's symptoms in very delicate detail. And none of them were pretty. He had been particularly interested in the final stage. He wanted to be prepared when the day came.

His mom had wanted him not to read about this horrible things, she wanted to protect him from the knowledge of what was to come, but she hadn't succeeded. He had needed to know.

Over the years he had experienced a lot of the symptoms and gone through the various stages. He had learnt that the symptoms differed from victim to victim and there were many very different of them. The one he had experienced most often was the loss of his sight. One time he had been blind for over two weeks and it had really scared him. Seeing was an important sense for him, and not being able to do that was very unsettling. And he hadn't even known whether he would be able to do so ever again, but he occasionally lost his sight for short periods of time afterwards. He had learnt to handle it somehow. At least he had his whitelighter senses to enhance his perception of his environment. He couldn't imagine what other blind people were going through, since they usually knew their vision would never return.

He wasn't sure whether he would be blind again during the last stage, but it was not like it really mattered anymore anyway. It had begun. He didn't exactly know how long he still had. It could be anything between a week and a day, but not longer.

He wasn't really afraid of dieing itself. He knew exactly how it would happen and he knew it would be painful, very painful, but that was not a big problem to him. But the idea that he would not be able to see the next day, that he wouldn't be able to talk to the sisters ever again, that he wouldn't see baby Wyatt sitting in his playpen or people laughing on the street, hell he would have even liked having Leo bitching at him, if it only meant he would be living that day.

But there was no hope. He sighed. There was one thing that was even worse for him than not seeing the next day. The scent of failure. He didn't have the chance to save Wyatt anymore. He had tried, but he hadn't managed and now it was too late. When he had traveled to the past he had known that the enchantment the elders had cast to slower the progression would wear off and he would not have the chance to return to the future, but he hadn't cared. If only he managed to save Wyatt it didn't matter what sacrifices he had to make. But now his time had run out and he hadn't done it.

Through all the fights he had had with various demons or even his brother he had realized something. He only had one essential enemy, and that was a merciless and cruel one.

Time.

It hadn't given him the chance to complete his mission and now it was killing him. He even had the feeling that somewhere, hidden in the shadows there was some incarnation of time, laughing its ass off because it had managed to bring him down.

His thoughts were distracted by the familiar sound of someone orbing in. Before the person had entirely materialized Chris quickly wiped his mouth clean of the blood that had to have been left there from his coughing before.

He looked up to be met by the gaze of his father. _Great_, he thought sarcastically. Hadn't he thought some minutes ago he would've liked Leo's bitching? Well now he regretted that thought. It had probably given him bad karma.

"What do you want?", he asked in his usual cocky way, in the hope Leo wouldn't notice how pale the young whitelighter was now.

"Why did you tell the sisters to look for a new whitelighter?", Leo asked impatiently.

Chris groaned on the inside. Just what he needed in his state, another one of Leo's interrogations.

"Because they're the Charmed Ones and it is essential that they have a whitelighter around to guide them", he said stubbornly, even though he knew that was not what Leo wanted to know.

"They have you", Leo said while his eyes seemed to be going right through Chris.

"Not anymore", Chris simply said.

"And why not? What happened to saving Wyatt from 'turning'?", Leo said while he tried to make clear in his voice that he did not believe that Wyatt would turn.

"Things changed", Chris replied cryptically. He was not going to tell Leo the truth no matter what. Even if he wanted to, what would he say? _Well, Dad I've been infected with a deadly disease and am probably going to die tomorrow? _It didn't sound very persuasive.

"Oh so you got a fax from the future saying that Wyatt is alright again and you can go home?", Leo asked in an unfriendly tone. In any other situation Chris would now have been amazed by that statement since he had never really believed Leo would manage to say something that sarcastic.

Instead he just rolled his eyes. "No I didn't. It's not you concern anyway. I need to leave, end of story"

"So suddenly you don't care about your 'oh so important' mission anymore? Looks like you weren't that serious about it after all", Leo mocked. It wasn't understandable for him how the boy was acting. At first he was doing anything to get his mission accomplished and now he just gave up? That sounded very suspicious.

"Oh just drop it", Chris said tiredly. He didn't want to argue now.

"Not until I know what you are up to"

Chris looked him straight in the eye and said coldly, "Do you realize there are things between heaven and earth that have nothing to do with you? It's not always about you, or your family, and not everything I do is something that you need to care about"

Leo still didn't believe the young whitelighter, but he heard Piper calling. He had agreed to baby-sit this afternoon and he was not going to let her down. And he wanted to be with his son just once.

"This is not over", he said pointedly to Chris and orbed out.

Chris just looked at the spot where the elder had just been standing and said, "In a few days it will be." He was fully aware of the fact that Leo couldn't hear him and he was happy about it.

Suddenly he felt a different presence in the room. And he remembered something he had almost forgotten. _These demons sense when one of their victims is in the final state… _

And he could feel them coming.

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To be continued. Please review!

Oh, and one question, since the description of various not very pretty symptoms of the disease might get pretty graphical do you think it's ok to leave the rating at T?


	2. Calculated doom

Death lurking within

Chapter 2 – Calculated doom

A/N: So sorry for the long delay, but getting settled in the ordinary routine of school life is harder than it looks. Besides, this story has been slow going for me ever since the very beginning. Took me forever till I had the first chapter finished as well, just back then no one noticed. I hope at least the chapter is good enough to not be so angry at me for taking so long anymore.

Thanks a lot for all the reviews I had never in my wildest dreams expected to get so many. I love you guys! I hope you'll keep on reviewing after this chapter.

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Wyatt looked into the crystal ball and was unable to take his eyes of it.

That was not because it was such a fascinating thing to see, not at all, but more of the opposite since the show some of his demons were putting on highly disgusted him. They were some weird kind of demons with large fangs whose name Wyatt had forgotten who loved eating humans. At the moment they were eating some unfortunate guy they picked up on the street who was begging for mercy while the blood splashed everywhere.

He only kept on looking at it to keep his mind off the things that were really bothering him.

He refused to carry on the train of thought that would lead him back to his worries so he concentrated on what he was seeing there.

Sometimes he had the feeling he wasn't thoroughly qualified for the post of evil ruler. Somehow his stomach was protesting to the program he was watching. But he had to do it, the demons wanted to show him how fabulous they were and he needed to keep them all happy to make them stay working for him.

Somehow he even felt pity for the guy down there, but he tried to push these feelings away. The guy didn't matter.

He immediately jumped up as he heard the door to the dimly lit room open. To his satisfaction and disappointment at the same time it was exactly who he had wanted to see all along.

"Mylord", the small demon said and bowed deep. It was not a very powerful guy with a furry face whose expression reminded Wyatt of an overgrown hamster.

"Finally! Why did it take you so long?", Wyatt asked impatiently and tapped on his watch with his fingers. It had indeed taken way too long.

"I am so sorry milord, the calculation took longer than expected", the demon tried to excuse himself and bowed again to express an apology.

"Why? It's simple, you have the progression rate at the normal time and the rate it had when the elders slowed it, so you just had to… Nevermind, what have you got?" Wyatt decided not to go through all the mathematics but to get the information he had been wanting to get but at the same time dreading to receive right away.

"He should have about a month after the time he went back to before he reaches the final stage", the demon said and bowed yet again. Underlining every statement with a bow could get really annoying, especially if everyone you talked to did it. Wyatt tried not to show any reaction to the given information, but rather keep an unmoved impression.

"Very well, you may go", he commanded in an icy voice that told the demon he had to leave immediately. The demon was one of the rare kind which was incapable of shimmering or flaming, so he rushed through the door as fast as his short legs were willing to take him.

As soon as the demon was gone Wyatt flung the door shut telekinetically. He didn't want anyone to see what he was doing now.

Now that his company had left his face paled considerably and he had to ease himself into the chair he had been sitting on at first while his brain tried to process what had been said. Chris was going to die just a month after their encounter.

Suddenly Wyatt regretted everything that had happened back then. It was mere three days ago for him and he had felt sorry for his behavior for quite a while now, but now felt even worse.

He had never meant to hit Chris or to hurt him in any way. _The guy is sick you bastard and the best thing you can do is try to choke him. Way to go, mister_, he scolded himself but it didn't change the facts. He also hadn't meant to kill Bianca. For a short moment it had felt good for him that at least the bitch had died, but then he had remembered how much Chris had loved her. He was truly a bastard, not only to hurt his brother but also killed the love of his life.

And now that brother was supposed to die before Wyatt could apologize?

Some people would ask now, why he cared, but his younger brother was someone special not just to Wyatt but to everyone, the older witch was just not under the impression Chris knew how much he truly meant to many people.

Chris' trip to the past had made everything a lot more complicated. On some level Wyatt even understood Chris' idea in going back, even though he didn't appreciate the fact that Chris did so.

Wyatt had made it his main goal to find a way to heal his brother. He had made the decision on the evening that pitiful elder had told them about the young boy's fate. He needed to save Chris. If the twice blessed one couldn't, who could? Chris liked to remind his older brother that the disease wasn't called incurable without a reason and that no one could heal it, but Wyatt didn't care.

He had done more research about the disease than anyone, at least he didn't know anyone who had spent more time studying it and the various records there were of its progression. He had even visited some other victims to study the disease. He was not going to let his brother down, no matter what.

But now that the enchantment the elders had made to slower the disease was gone, Wyatt's hope was fading. He needed to work fast and what he had so far was some very amazing data but quite far from a cure. Of course it was time travel and in theory he had any time he wanted to have, but when magic was involved you could never be sure whether it really worked the way you wanted. So it was better not to take any chances.

He looked over to the large cabin where he collected everything he had ever written down concerning the disease. No one was allowed to look in that cabin, and Wyatt was pretty sure that not even Chris knew how much Wyatt had truly worked for this.

He searched the dark wood for anything that could help him, even though he was well aware of the fact that he indeed needed to open the doors, to see anything useful.

But then a sheet of paper that was hurled on the floor caught his eye. He immediately recognized what it was. It was one of his latest attempts to develop a cure, but he had not judged it to be a very hopeful possibility.

Unless…

What if it could work?

It was not based on any stupid ideas and was logical. But could he dare to take his hopes on this? He didn't think so.

But still… something about this had caught his attention and he had learned to trust his instincts over the years. He shoved the crystal ball of the table and looked for a pen. Then he took the piece of paper and read it over and over again.

With a click he uncapped the pen and started to add new notes to the already existent ones.

He needed this to work. It was the only hope.

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Piper tapped her foot anxiously. There were two reasons for the fact that she was not in a good mood. For one she needed Leo to come soon so she could finally go to P3 while he watched Wyatt. One of her bartenders had called her and told her that there was some problem with the delivery of toy ghosts. And she didn't even have an idea what on earth a nightclub would need a toy ghost for. She really needed to sort this out.

And the other thing was that she finally wanted to find out why their neurotic whitelighter wanted them to get a new one.

Her sisters were both in the living room with her. Only their curiosity about what Chris was doing was keeping them on the couch they were sitting on. Paige actually had to attend her next temp job and Elise was expecting Phoebe to be at the Bay Mirror.

Finally Piper's former husband orbed in to relief them of their tension. "Finally! What did he say?", were the first words Piper had for her former lover.

"Uh… he basically said it'd none of my or your business and that it has nothing to do with Wyatt or any other member of this family", Leo admitted. Just when he said it out loud he fully realized what a waste of time that inquiry had been. And he felt a little embarrassed about the fact that he hadn't managed to get any useful information out of the boy.

Paige stared at him incredulously. "That's it?", she asked with a voice full of disbelief. Was this what she was risking loosing her work for the temp agency for?

"Yes", Leo replied and was suddenly very interested in looking at his shoes. Which, now that he realized it, desperately needed some cleaning. Were on earth did they get so dirty?

Piper glared at her watch and threw up her hands in defeat. "That guy is driving me crazy! I need to get going!"

"Are you sure he didn't say anything else?", Phoebe asked hopeful. She really needed to know she wasn't just wasting her time here, even though she knew that she was.

"Yes, very sure", Leo told her. "Look, I…" he started, but before he could say "need to get going" they were interrupted by the ringing of the doorbell.

"Oh not now", Piper almost screamed. As if she had time for this. But still she made her way to the door and ripped it open.

"What?", she bluntly asked the teenaged girl who was standing in front of her.

"Where is Chris?", the girl asked immediately, without caring about the rudeness of the older woman.

"How do you know him?", Piper asked and her eyes narrowed suspiciously. Maybe he had slept with her and never called her back or something. But she didn't really believe this, since she had the feeling he was avoiding ordinary humans from this time period. But what if this girl was no ordinary human?

The girl hesitated for a moment. She didn't think it would be very intelligent to tell the truth right away, but she seriously doubted her ability to come up with a decent lie in time. Finally she admitted, "He's my cousin"

"your cousin?", Phoebe repeated incredulously. She had never even considered the possibility that Chris could have family. Now that she thought about it, that had been pretty stupid of her.

"So you're… from the future?", Paige asked with more than a hint of doubt in her voice. Another person popping in from the future was not really what she wanted at the moment. Then she realized how stupid she was. What if that girl knew nothing about magic? In that case she had just made a very stupid mistake.

"Yes", the girl said while doing her best to avoid looking the sisters in the eyes.

"That doesn't sound very credible", Piper stated determinedly. "If you are from the future, why did you ring the doorbell? You could've just orbed in or something" She crossed her arms. She was really not in the mood for some new magical stuff to take care of, but what choice did she have?

"I wanted to be polite", the girl said irritated. She had thought it had been a good idea not just to pop in, but she also knew that the Charmed Ones weren't very easy to predict.

"Oh", Piper said. It made somehow sense, but she was absolutely not used to politeness of magical beings.

"So what do you want from him?", Phoebe asked puzzled.

"It's…", the girl started, but then hesitated. What was she going to say? My cousin could die in less than a week and I need to prevent it? Didn't have that good a ring to it, and she was well aware of the fact that Chris would be completely mad if she told them this. He always wanted to keep everyone out of his business, and she was very certain, that he applied that rule a lot more to the people from the past than from the future.

"We're waiting…", Paige announced impatiently. She was constantly glancing to her watch, even though she knew that even by orbing she wouldn't be at her temp job soon enough. And she was pretty certain, that calling in sick _again _would not make a very good impression on her boss.

"Well…", the girl started yet again, but then something unexpected happened. She felt him. Immediately she knew where he was, even though he had been blocking himself off her radar ever since he had been 8. And she knew he only would put that blocking off if he was too weak to keep it up. That was a bad sign. A very bad one.

"I gotta go!", she said and shimmered out, leaving the Charmed Ones and their former whitelighter to stare incredulously at the spot where she had been standing.

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She was here.

He felt it from the beginning. And he knew that it was just a matter of time until she found him. Keeping up the kind of block he had created was very straining.

Her name was Phenola Paige Halliwell. She had only gotten that name for the sake of the P. She was Phoebe's and Cole's daughter. Until she had been 12 none of the younger Halliwell generation had known about the fact that Cole was a demon, or well, technically half-demon, but then she had started shimmering, which had, at the beginning scared the hell out of her and Cole had been forced to admit to his demonic routes.

She and Chris had always been very close, up until the point when Wyatt turned. They had both started fighting against Wyatt's rule, neither aware that the other was trying to stop him, too.

When they had both found out that the other was against Wyatt, too, they had started to work together and form a resistance against their mad relative.

She had always had a soft spot for him, ever since he had gotten his disease. And she had been 3 back then.

Even though he liked her a lot and she was the only relative he had left on his side, he didn't want her here. He didn't want her to know when it happened. It would make everything so much harder. And it was already hard enough.

He took a deep breath and leaned his back against the tree he was sitting next to at the moment. He had orbed away from P3 only to find himself lost with nowhere else to go. He had found a nice spot far away from any human population. He had no idea, where exactly he was and would not have been able to point at it, had someone given him a globe. It was colder than what he was used to, so he figured it could be in Canada or Finland, maybe northern Russia even. But what did the location matter if the demons where going to find him anywhere? And Phin was able to do so, too?

Before he could carry on with his train of thought he was thrown into another coughing fit. It didn't last too long, but it hurt like hell. He was feeling as if his lungs were on fire. He pressed a hand against his chest after he was done coughing. If he did so, it hurt a little less. But the difference was barely noticeable. He looked at his other hand which he had used to cover his mouth with and found it to be full of blood. He wasn't shocked at all. He just knew that it was ending. He was ending. And somehow, on some deep level of his mind he was ok with it. No one was going to save Wyatt now, but his fight was over, regardless of the consequences. It was not like he had a choice, but maybe, just maybe if he did have one, he wouldn't have made a different one.

When Phenola orbed in the sight her eyes were picking up almost instantly broke her heart. Her cousin, the one she had always looked up to, the only member of the family she could always tell everything was leaning with his back against a tree, sunken down with blood on his hand and judging from the look on his face obviously in pain. She had to restrain herself to not start crying right there.

He felt her presence, but he didn't react. He kept on staring at the grass which was wet as he now noticed. Apparently it was raining, but under the thick cover of leaved above him, he hadn't even noticed it yet.

Phin moved closer to him cautiously. She could imagine he knew that she was there, but she was not taking any chances, she didn't want to scare him. She reached out to touch the bark of the old honorable tree, and then knelt down beside him. He kept avoiding her gaze.

"Hey", she whispered softly and finally he turned around to face her. He was looking even worse than she had expected. He was completely pale while the areas of his eyes which were usually supposed to be white were full of read. Keeping herself from crying was getting harder by the second. _You're going to save him, don't worry, focus!_ She scolded herself, but it was not of much use.

"Why did you come?", he asked her with a soar voice. Talking hurt. It hadn't when he had talked to Leo. This was strange. But inevitable.

"To save you", Phin said with a pleading look in her eyes. This simply had to work. He had to stay alive. Otherwise she was certain she would break.

"You're wasting you're time", Chris announced bluntly. He could see her being hurt by these words but he couldn't avoid it. It was easier for both of them if she just left.

"No, I'm not", she contradicted almost immediately.

He let go a heavy sigh and looked at her sadly. "Yes you are. And you know it. Have known it for 12 years, so please just make it easier for both of us and leave", he almost commanded. He didn't really want to see her here. Because her presence reminded him so much of everything he was destined to leave. Of everything he would never see.

"No please, listen. Wyatt found a way to cure you. It'll work, I'm certain of it, it's really good, you just need to come with me and then we can save you and you can continue your mission", she told him with a hint of hope in her voice.

He looked at her startled for a moment. "Wyatt?", he repeated incredulously.

"Yes", she admitted reluctantly. "We are on a temporary alliance, just long enough to save you. I haven't turned I swear, I'd never do that", she told him, completely missing the point he was so surprised about.

"I thought he didn't care…", he whispered and looked at the grass again. He didn't know what to think of it, but somehow he felt his mood rise. Wyatt cared. He wanted to save him. Maybe he wasn't completely lost to evil at all. If that was still there… But it didn't matter much. He was wasting his effort on a long lost cause.

"He does. And I do, too. It will work, I know it", Phin confirmed.

"Tell him… I really appreciate the gesture, but it's useless. Thanks for the offer, anyway. It's nice you two are working together on a good thing. Keep that up", Chris said and looked at her with eyes that seemed to scream at her that all hope was lost. But she was not giving in. Not yet.

"No, we are going to save you. Don't talk as if everything was lost", she started, but he interrupted her.

"It is lost", he emphasized.

"It's not!", she argued.

"Of course it is. What part of incurable did you two not get?", he asked and almost got angry. Why didn't she see it? Why didn't she just leave him in peace?

"It doesn't have to be", she pleaded.

"But it is", he almost yelled. Than he started coughing again. It was even worse this time than ever before. He almost felt as if the coughing would never stop and his head started spinning. When he was done Phin could finally feel the tears welling up in her eyes when she saw all of the blood.

"Please", he continued a lot quieter than before. "Just leave me in peace"

"But…", she started only to be interrupted again.

"I don't want to make it harder. It's hard enough as it is, both for you and me and apparently Wyatt. I don't want you two to get your hopes up only to be disappointed. This would just make it so much harder for you and for me. Please just let me die alone", he pleaded. The way he looked at her was too much for her. She couldn't stay here. She couldn't see him die. And she couldn't deny his wish.

And with these thoughts she shimmered out.

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"She shimmered! Did you see it? She shimmered?", Piper asked and was close to hysterics. "He has a demon in the family, maybe he is one himself!", she yelled. She couldn't believe it. What if the guy they had always mistaken as their whitelighter was in reality a demon? She felt sick to her stomach at the thought how close they had let him get to their family.

The club and the problems there were completely forgotten. If this guy had really tricked them she already knew he would have hell to pay. No demon fooled Piper Halliwell and lived to tell about it. She was damn serious about that.

"Could you get a read of her?", Paige asked Phoebe. She was just as shocked about the shimmering as Piper was, but she couldn't really believe she could be related to Chris.

"No… it was weird, I knew her presence I knew feelings were there, but I couldn't sense anything detailed", Phoebe admitted. She didn't like it when she had no real control of one of her powers and the fact that she hadn't gathered any information was making her feel very uncomfortable.

Just then the girl shimmered back in. "You lied to us, didn't you?", Piper immediately yelled at her. "You're not his cousin, you're one of his demon friends aren't you?"

Phin was completely confused by that, but she did get the most important detail and immediately shouted back, "Chris has no demon friends!" She tried her best to hide the tears that were rolling down her face.

"Pity, huh?", a deep voice from behind asked, before the argument could escalate. Everyone in the room spun around immediately, to look at the tall blond man standing in the doorframe.

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TBC… Please review!


	3. A risky plan

Death lurking within

Chapter 3 – A risky plan

A/N: I love you guys. That's why I'm trying to update sooner this time. Thanks a big lot for all the review, you're the best. This chapter is probably going to be shorter than the ones before, but that's just because of the plot.

Disclaimer: No, it has not changed (big surprise) I do not own Charmed.

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"What the hell are you doing here?", Phenola half-yelled. "You promised to leave this to me!"

"Well you took too long", Wyatt said in an annoyed tone and moved closer. He tried to hide his anxiousness by pretending to be angry. In reality he was just really worried. And unlike the sisters he did notice the tears Phenola was so desperately trying to hide. And they were making him even more scared of what there was to come. Where they too late? He had calculated it so well, he couldn't have been mistaken, now could he?

"We had a deal. I was going to bring him home. You were not supposed to interfere with it", she argued. She tried to act as if she was just angry about him having showed up, but she was very well aware that this was a lost cause. No one else took notice of the most subtle change in his expression that had come over him when he had seen her face. But she knew that he knew that she was crying.

"Just as I said I don't have the patience to wait for your incompetence. Time is of the essence, you should know that better than anyone else", he snapped back. He wasn't angry at her at all, even though he pretended to be. He only wanted to get to Chris as soon as possible.

The real reason that he was here was not that he feared her to be incompetent, years of experience had taught him that she could handle herself very well and was a very capable person. He had done a new calculation and he had the fear that he had maybe sent her to the wrong time. That this was just a little too late. After all, time was the most important factor in this whole dealing.

"We shouldn't do this", she whispered in the hope the Charmed Ones and Leo wouldn't hear her. Or at least not understand what she was saying. She couldn't tell Wyatt everything that Chris had told her. These were things that were none of the Charmed Ones' business. Chris would definitely not want them to know anything about his disease.

She however underestimated the fine ears of her aunt Paige. Paige heard exactly what the girl said, and it gave her a very uneasy feeling. Suddenly she wasn't so sure, whether this girl was really related to Chris. The man was obviously evil. She couldn't really explain what gave her this feeling, but it was just there. And the girl... she didn't appear to be evil, but she shimmered. Maybe the two of them were planning to do something bad to Chris and he had left because he had wanted to keep the Charmed Ones out of this problem. This made sense to her and she liked it a lot more than the alternative. Chris being evil. Ever since they had found out, that he was half-whitelighter as well she had liked him a lot more. Imagining him evil was something she didn't want to do at all.

For the first time Wyatt's angry mask shattered a little. Through his cover a little confusion and fear shimmered through. "Why not?", he asked confused. Her behavior made absolutely no sense to him.

She didn't really know how to answer this without exposing too much information about Chris to the past Version of their family, so she didn't say a thing.

"Where is he?", Wyatt demanded with a little lower voice than before. This told Fin that he was loosing his patience. For real this time.

"It's... it's not a good idea...", she stuttered a little lost. She didn't want to make it harder for Chris. She didn't want Wyatt to meet him. But she had no idea how to keep Wyatt from getting there.

"Get me there, now", he commanded and the look in his eyes sent shivers down her spine, so she took his hand and shimmered the two of them out of the manor.

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Chris almost felt like sleeping. He had never had a headache like this before and every time he opened his eyes a little the whole world seemed to spin violently around. He had however managed to open them long enough to survey his own state. To sum it up in one word, he was screwed. His hands looked almost as if they belonged to some kind of zombie, all the healthy color they had once possessed had left them entirely and parts of his skin had begun to turn black as if they were made of ashes.

He raised his other hand and touched one of the parts that was black. He felt the skin crumble away underneath his finger and couldn't help but feel a little more sick than he already did. This was absolutely no dignified way to die. Now that he thought about it, he noticed that his entire body was shaking. He was in a bad state.

Suddenly he felt a presence there which he didn't like at all. And then another. And one more.

They had found him. He opened his eyes again and through the spinning and dark spots that clouded his vision he saw the form that haunted his worst nightmares.

The Cretsa demons.

They were circling him. He knew they would not hurt him. Not until he died on his own. And then he was going to become their dinner. This was so not the way he wanted to end. But he didn't have a choice.

And yet he felt a lonely tear leave his eyes. The salty liquid left a burning trail which reminded him painfully of the fact, that his face probably looked worse, or at least different than his hands.

But suddenly something changed. He felt someone else coming. And suddenly all of the demons were gone.

Wyatt couldn't believe it. The demons had already been here. Vanquishing them didn't pose a problem, but the mere fact that they were already here meant his brother didn't have more than some hours left. Tops. He sent a silent prayer to whatever force there was out there, even though he didn't believe in that kind of thing that he had not come too late. That he still had time to save Chris.

When he came nearer to his brother he had to restrain himself from gasping at Chris' state. He looked even worse than he would ever have expected. But it didn't matter, as long as he could still be saved.

He knelt down beside the young man that in reality was just a boy and whispered, "Hey".

Chris half looked at his brother with unfocused eyes, but it was enough for him to recognize who he was. And this meant more to him than he had ever believed it would.

Wyatt really did care. Chris hadn't really believed it when Fin had told him, but now there was not the shadow of a doubt left.

"Chris, I think I can save you. Just let me explain"

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"I don't have a good feeling about this!", Paige exclaimed as soon as the two strangers had left.

"Neither me", Phoebe said and looked uncertain what to do. She wasn't really certain whether these two were really evil or not. She had picked up strange vibes from both of them. They had seemed to be blocking themselves off of her, and yet she had sensed feelings like concern and fear. Did demons feel emotions like that?

"Maybe they're evil and Chris knew they were coming so he left to keep us out of it", Paige mouthed her theory.

Piper looked at her in thought. "You think so?" She liked that theory actually. That meant that they had not let an evil person near to Wyatt for almost a year. And that gave her a lot better feeling.

"It's possible", Paige said and shrugged.

"Well in that case we should help him", Leo said. In the prospect of that theory he felt a little guilty about the way he had bitched at Chris before. Maybe he was just trying to protect Wyatt and the sisters. Of course the elder had no idea how far off from the truth the entire theory was.

"Can you sense him?", Piper asked to both the whitelighters. The two of them concentrated for a moment then shook their heads.

"Nothing", Paige said disappointedly.

"Same here", Leo declared.

"Well then let's scry for them"

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Chris really felt bad. Talking hurt a lot, but after hearing Wyatt's plan there was only one possible reply. "What the fuck?", he asked incredulously and shot his older brother the best disbelieving look he could manage in his state.

"I know it sounds risky...", Wyatt started with concern in his voice, only to be cut off by the younger male. "It's not just risky, it's insane! Where did you get that crap?"

"It's logical. The disease stops progressing when the victim dies, so we have to kill you and revive you afterwards, it's simple", Wyatt defended himself. He knew that this plan was probably not the best thing he had ever come up with, but what choice did he have? The alternative was sitting back and watching his brother die, and he was sure as hell not going to do that.

"I heard you the first time. Something like that won't work, you can't revive the dead", Chris said. To him this entire plan was really worthy of the its inventor. Completely fucked up and crazy.

"Not usually, no, but if we do it with this potion", he held up the vial to emphasize his point, "and use the other one to revive you, it will work, I tested it, with this combination people can be revived", Wyatt pleaded. He had not expected the hardest part of his plan to be convincing Chris of doing it.

"That's ridiculous. You're wasting your time", Chris replied and noticed how weak he sounded. Why couldn't they just leave him alone? It would not do any good anyway.

"Chris please! What have you got to loose? It's at least worth a try if we can save you by doing it", Wyatt pleaded. He looked at Fin for help, but she was just crying and didn't say a thing.

Chris looked at Wyatt and shook his head, which was a bad idea for it made his neck hurt nastily.

"Chris, I can't just sit back and watch you die! I simply can't! You can't just die away and leave me alone.", Wyatt begged. Chris was startled when he realized that his older brother was close to tears. And he realized that there was a part inside him that wanted to believe Wyatt, a part that didn't want to give up. And his brother was right after all. He had absolutely nothing to loose.

Finally he sighed and said, "ok. Try"

"Thanks", Wyatt said relieved. Now it only had to work.

He took out the vial again and attached it to another device he had been carrying with him. It was a needle. He did not believe Chris was in a state to swallow a potion at the moment. He looked worse by the minute.

Wyatt took a deep breath and injected the potion carefully into his younger brother's bloodstream. It would be only a matter of seconds until it would serve its purpose. His heartbeat fastened a little, when he realized with fear that he was killing his own brother. _Not for real_, he tried to calm himself down, but it didn't change the fact that he was.

He waited a little until he was certain it had worked so far. He had to control himself to stay calm and not go hysteric. His little brother was lying before him and he was dead. That was really hard to stomach.

Fin looked at Wyatt with a worried look on her face. "Everything alright?", she asked scared.

Wyatt nodded. It should have been enough time to work now. He pulled out the other vial and attached it to the needle. With concentration he injected the other liquid.

Both he and Fin could do nothing but stare at Chris in fear now. The seconds passing without anything happening felt worse than anything else any of them had experienced so far.

Wyatt glanced at his watch anxiously and it was just then that he realized something wasn't right. Usually it had taken about half the time Chris was taking now for his test subjects to recover. _Maybe it's harder for him because of the disease_, Wyatt thought hopefully, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something here was going very wrong.

They waited a little longer but nothing happened. "Shouldn't he be awake by now?", Fin asked concernedly.

"He should be", Wyatt whispered.

He had failed. He looked down at his little brother and realized that he would not wake up again. It hadn't worked.

Chris Perry Halliwell was dead.

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To be continued… (This is not the end, don't worry)

Please review!


	4. Results

Death lurking within

Chapter 4 – Results

A/N: I won't be able to write for the next few days so I thought I'd better get another chapter of this out before anyone wants to kill me. Didn't update sooner because I had a major writer's looming over my head which prevented me from getting anything done. I just hope it's off now…

Disclaimer: Writing these things gets boring, because all the creative ways of saying this have already been discovered and used by people who are much smarter than me. That does give me an inferiority complex. That, along with the fact that I don't own Charmed.

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"What the hell is going on here?"

Piper Halliwell's loud voice cut through the silence the current events had caused in both her older son and her niece. Naturally she had no idea what the current events were, neither that these two were related to her anyhow, but the fact that they were both sitting next to a figure that was lying on the ground which she could not identify from were she was standing was enough to give her a bad feeling.

Something seemed to be odd with these two.

She was standing between her youngest sister and her husband on whose other side her other sister was standing as well. They had scryed for Chris and orbed right to the place were they had detected his supposed whereabouts, yet they didn't see him anywhere around.

Unless… the oldest Charmed One was the first to realize that it was very possible that she knew the figure lying between the two intruders from the future.

Wyatt didn't turn around when he heard his mother shouting. It was not like it was any of her business anyway. Well somehow it was, but she was not yet Chris' mother, not even close to being so, which in his opinion stripped her of any right to know 'what the hell was going on'.

Couldn't they have chosen any other moment to come here? Or even better could they have not come here at all? Apparently the world didn't like him. At any other moment he could've stood up to them, made sarcastic comments and annoyed them to no end. Any other moment he could've faced them, but not right now. Right now was the worst possible time for him. He could barely wrap his mind around the possible fact that his brother could be dead but now he was supposed to explain this to his family from the past who didn't know either of them had anything to do with the Warren line? That was not fair.

Piper on the other hand was not in a very patient mood. She stepped closer, but could still not see who was lying on the ground, so she repeated her demand, "I asked, what is going on?" The quiet and growling tone of hers made evident that she had no intention of spending a lot of time on interrogations.

Wyatt still didn't move. Couldn't she just go away? But he knew his mother and the rest of the family and he knew exactly how persistent they could be. But he could be stubborn as well. He was not going to make finding out that easy.

"Are you deaf?", Piper asked bluntly after she had spent some more minutes waiting for an answer she was not going to receive.

Finally Wyatt turned around and answered in an icy voice that still could barely hide his red eyes, "No. But this is none of your business"

Just a moment too late he realized by the shocked look on Piper's face that by turning around he had given her an open view on the body of his younger brother which looked far from pretty courtesy to the horrible disease.

"What did you do to him?", she asked in a voice that was almost an octave higher than the voice she ordinarily used. She could only see the face of their young whitelighter but that was more than enough. He looked so awful that she could barely manage to keep her breath steady, which was usually not something she had trouble with. She could barely recognize his face in its current state.

Wyatt wasn't really sure what to answer. "Nothing", he said stubbornly, even though that was far from true. If not for his efforts to save Chris he would still be alive, so nothing was barely the word to describe it, but Phenola, the only person who knew about his true actions did not protest to his statement.

"Nothing? Are you kidding me? If you did nothing he wouldn't look like that!", Paige half-yelled, while she was uncertain whether the young man in the grass was still alive. He sure as hell didn't look that way.

"He was sick", Wyatt said simply. He didn't have the nerve to tell the entire story right now. And he didn't want to talk at all at the moment, still he didn't have much of a choice, since he knew that the Charmed Ones were prone to doing stupid things if they didn't have the proper information.

"Was? Is he dead?", Paige asked considerably less loud. She did not like the sudden use of the past tense the young man in front of her was showing. This did not sound too good.

"Yes. Happy now?", Wyatt asked in a voice that could not have been more filled with loath and hatred. It was not that he hated them altogether, but at the moment he could not take responsibility for his actions. At the moment he was just so not up to anything.

This revelation shocked all of the people from the past. How could their neurotic whitelighter just be dead like that? He was way too young for that.

"You killed him, didn't you?", Piper asked with a glare towards her older son of whose true identity she had no idea.

"No, I didn't", Wyatt said in a quiet but threatening voice that he usually used on his minions when one of them was out of line. Of course that was not really true, but the complete truth was stinging in his heart enough without them condemning him for something he had only done to try to safe his brother.

Paige didn't know exactly what was a good thing to say right now, since the given news were unsettling her probably even more than her sisters. She had always liked the young man better than her sisters had, because he was about her age, and half whitelighter as well. And she didn't believe this man whoever it was that he had not killed Chris. She couldn't imagine any disease that would make their victim look the way Chris did at the moment. "Who are you?", she demanded bluntly.

Wyatt glared at her. For what seemed the hundredth time he wished none of them were here, but of course that was useless. "I am Wyatt Matthew Halliwell, also known as the source of all evil in my time", he said, only to shock them, since he did not designate himself that way, but he knew that would silence them for a moment.

"What?", Piper almost screamed. That was her son? He was the source of all evil? Immediately she regretted her past behavior towards Chris. He had told them the truth, Wyatt would turn evil, and she had told him to piss off. And now he was dead.

"Yeah, and it gets even better, _mom_", Wyatt said enraged. He spit out the word mom as if it was a disgusting thing to say. "Chris is my baby brother."

For a moment Piper was completely frozen, while the neurons in her head were spinning, trying to make sense of what she had just heard. Chris was Wyatt's brother. That meant he was…

Her son.

And dead.

Her second son had died before she had even known of his existence. "No", she whispered weakly with her eyes fixed on her younger son's face.

Wyatt felt a weird sense of satisfaction when he watched his mother being devastated by the news. So she would finally shut up. He decided to rub a little further. "And from what I know from his stay here, all of you treated him like crap. While he was about to die!", he stated angrily. He didn't know why, but being mean to someone else made it somehow easier for him to deal with his sibling's demise. Even though it was not really dealing, but more of a distraction from his own feelings.

That silenced the others. It was true. They hadn't known who he was and they had treated him so badly. There was no excuse for their behavior.

"Since when was he sick?", Phoebe asked while she was trying to fight back the tears that were trying to push their way up to her eyes. This was really a lot to handle for this short a moment.

"Since he was ten", Wyatt said, now more quiet himself. They understood now. At least a little bit and that meant the interrogation was over. On some unconscious level he was very grateful for that.

"Oh my god", Piper whispered, lost in thought.

"Yeah. And now excuse me, I'm leaving", Wyatt announced out of a sudden change of mind. He took his brother's hand and shimmered out immediately.

"Hey!", Phenola yelled. She had been quiet through the entire conversation, trying to process what had just happened, but now this was too much. Wyatt couldn't just shimmer out and leave her behind. Luckily her demonic senses were picking up, where the older man had gone, so she shimmered right after him, Leaving the Charmed Ones and Leo in confusion.

"Where'd they go?", Piper half asked half yelled while spinning around suddenly to her husband.

Leo was completely stunned by everything that had been said now, but he knew that tone of Piper's and immediately closed his eyes in an attempt to detect the new whereabouts of his older son.

He reopened his eyes after some seconds and declared, "I can't sense them"

"Then orb us back to the manor, so we can scry for them!", Piper commanded and grabbed her husbands hand without waiting for a response.

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"Why isn't it working?", Piper yelled.

They were back at the manor and had been scrying for almost an hour now, but to no avail. This was straining on Piper's nerve. At the moment her sisters were down in the kitchen and trying to mix some 'detection potion' of which they did not have a big hope to succeed. Piper was in the attic with Leo, who seemed to be frozen in place and hadn't said anything in over 20 minutes.

"I don't know", the elder replied shyly.

Piper let the crystal drop down on the map she had been using. She let herself drop on the sofa next to the table and finally she wasn't able to hold the tears back anymore which she had been pushing back ever since they had arrived back at their home.

"This is impossible", she stated through her sobbing and covered her face with her hands.

"What do you mean?", Leo asked, even though it was pretty obvious to him what his wife meant.

"I mean, we can't do anything!", she yelled and kicked the table leg in frustration. Leo saw this as his cue to do something. He went over to sit next to her and put his arm around her.

She pretended not to notice him and went on, "We are just being faced with all the results and can't do a thing about it. I mean Chris is dead and he's our son and we've been horrible to him and all this is just falling down on us like that, all the information, and still we can do absolutely nothing"

Leo knew she was close to hysterics and her ranting wasn't helping him either.

"Well, you didn't treat him the way I did", he contradicted. "You didn't mistrust him and follow him everywhere all the time. You didn't tell him he wasn't family, and on top of it, you didn't yell at him and argue with him just some hours before his death when he was already looking more pale than ever before"

"He was pale?", Piper asked confused. "You knew he was sick?", she asked, a little louder than before.

"I didn't think it was something serious", Leo defended himself. But he felt as if he was lying to both her and himself. It didn't matter what he thought. The way he had behaved towards Chris just some hours ago was horrible, and the boy had been near death, yet he hadn't spent a second thought on it. What kind of father was horrible enough to yell at his son just some hours before his death? And what kind of father would've chosen not to care when he noticed that his son was sick?

Leo knew it. No one was as bad a father as he was. And Piper was right, all this information at once was very hard to swallow. How could Chris be his son? How could he be dead?

Piper noticed the look on her husband's face and decided not to dig any further on what exactly had happened between the two just some hours ago. Apparently Leo was feeling bad enough about it, the way it was.

"What are we going to do when we find them?", she whispered. No one had thought about that question yet. They were looking for her older son, whose behavior was even another piece of information that she could hardly handle. But what were they supposed to do when they knew his whereabouts? It didn't change the fact that Chris was dead. Why were they even trying to find him? Somehow she needed to that and it seemed all natural to her, but on a logical level it made no sense.

"I don't know", Leo admitted.

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"And what the hell are you going to do now?", Phenola yelled at her older cousin.

The two of them were standing in some abandoned Underworld cave Wyatt had apparently chosen suitable for whatever he was intending to do.

"Resurrect him, what do you think?", he snapped back.

"And how will you do that? It's impossible to resurrect the dead, it didn't even work with that potion of yours! Chris wanted to die in piece, so stop it now. It's useless", she yelled, while doing her best to mask her sobs.

"So what? I'm the twice blessed one, nothing is impossible for me. I'll find a way, no matter what", Wyatt shouted, well aware of the fact that there were indeed things that were impossible, even for him. But he wasn't going to give up. That was not his habit and never would be. And besides he couldn't stand the mere thought that his younger brother could be anything but alive. Wyatt would not accept his death, at least not this easily.

"Maybe I can help…", a voice said from behind, startling both Halliwells. They turned around to see a stranger hidden in the shadows…

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TBC Please review!


	5. Decisions and Deception

Death lurking within

Chapter 5 – Decisions and Deception

A/N: An interesting experiment. My most successful story so far, not updated in literally ages (about 10 months). I wonder if anyone will still read this…

I'm not going to waste my and your time trying to explain why it's been so long, but I read some of my own old stories including those unfinished like this one and decided I could write on a little. I don't know when the next update will be, however, it might be a while, but I thought of a way to end "Please Return to Me" and I don't think I want to leave this the only story unfinished (except for the one I abandoned). Well, enjoy this chapter, regardless of when the next update might be.

Disclaimer: Apparently not writing Charmed stories for 10 months didn't make me own it either. Who would've figured…

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Wyatt glared in the stranger's face. Due to the cave's scarce illumination he didn't see a lot, but the person seemed to be female, but didn't look very special. Dark hair, rather pale skin, just like any other demon who looked human. The face was rather forgettable and uninteresting and the long dark robe she was wearing looked rather common as well.

"Who are you?", he asked in an icy voice that usually managed to get anyone to shiver, but the demon smiled.

"Neema is my name," she announced and stepped a little further into the cave so that she was a little better visible. Wyatt somehow had the feeling he had seen her somewhere before, but he couldn't pinpoint where. It was probably just his imagination anyway since she looked similar to a lot of demons he knew.

"And why should we be interested in you?", Wyatt demanded to know. He was not in a mood to be messed with, and he really wanted to focus on bringing Chris back, even though he didn't have the slightest idea how he was supposed to accomplish that.

"He's dead isn't he?", she asked and looked at Chris' body that Wyatt had put on a large stone altar in the middle of the room a little more closely. She did not wait for an answer but commented as she leaned closer with a strange movement of her head that looked as though there where no bones in her neck, "Looks rather nasty, too" She noticed Wyatt glaring at her in a way that was exactly the opposite of reassuring and she stepped back a little. "Well if you don't like him being dead, I think I can help."

"How?", Wyatt asked with a steely voice. His face remained unmoved even though he felt a glimmer of hope rising inside him. Perhaps this was…

"Well, I'm sort of specialized in raising the dead", the demon explained with a small smile that suggested she knew that she had earned Wyatt's attention.

"That's impossible," Phenola broke in. "No one can raise the dead," she added with a threatening undertone in her voice. She was certain that this demon was only trying to deceive them. She didn't trust demons in general, but she had the feeling that this one was even less trustworthy than all the others she knew.

"Maybe not as impossible as it seems. I'm a necromancer", Neema explained, the smug smile never leaving her face.

Phenola pulled up an eyebrow and glared at her, making her disbelief quite evident in her expression. "The only necromancer I ever knew could not raise the dead", she stated, doing her best to make the necromancer see just exactly how little the young half witch thought of her.

Neema just kept on smiling in a way that was sometimes used by old people, smiling at the ignorance of young children, finding it cute what opinions they had about life but resting with the smug assurance that they knew better. That smile made Phenola want to punch her. "Necromancy is more of a wide spread term. It can mean a lot, and there are a lot of different directions to this craft, mine being the resurrection of dead people", the demon said calmly. For a moment Phenola could've sworn that the demon's eyes had turned yellow, but perhaps it was just her imagination, because a second later she looked the way she had before.

"What do you want?", Wyatt asked suddenly, obviously not caring about whatever Phenola thought of the idea and only focusing on the necromancer. It took Phenola a second to realize that he was talking of payment.

"Well, I'm sure we can figure something out as soon as your brother has recovered," Neema said cryptically, still smiling, but now a little more satisfied than before.

"You're not seriously considering to let her do this, are you?", Phenola asked incredulously, staring at her cousin in disbelief.

He pointedly ignored her question and asked Neema, "What do you need to revive him?"

"Just the body. Maybe a personal item or a picture, too, that sometimes raises the chances of a successful procedure," Neema explained.

Wyatt's eyes narrowed. "Chances?", he repeated in a low unsettling voice.

"Nothing to worry about, of course," Neema reassured him hurriedly, "Sometimes there can be problems, regarding the connection of soul and body, but the odds of there being any issues are extremely low. It's just a little safer with a personal item."

"You can't let her do that!", Phenola protested, seeing that her cousin was obviously considering making an alliance with the demon. She really couldn't believe it.

"Well, I will leave you alone for a while so you can deliberate," Neema announced, _still _having that annoying smile of hers. With these words she shimmered out.

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"This seems so surreal," Phoebe said while both she and Paige were sitting in the kitchen, mixing together ingredients without having any idea whether this had any chance of working.

"hm," Paige replied without really listening, but it wasn't as if Phoebe cared whether someone listened to her.

"I mean, it's as if it's a bad dream. I doesn't seem real, you know. I can't really believe this. Maybe they lied. Maybe he isn't our nephew. Maybe that guy isn't even Wyatt but just pretending to be. Maybe this is all some sort of bad dream, and I will wake up in a short while," Phoebe went on rambling.

Paige barely took notice of any of the words flying around the kitchen. She heard something of nephew and bad dream, but she failed to see the connection. She didn't try to either. She was busy cutting some roots with a perfectionism that was not usual for her. But she was completely lost in thought and even though her hands were moving professionally she didn't really know what she was doing.

She had no doubt that it was true. She hadn't had any from the second that Wyatt had told them who Chris was. It fit too neatly to be a lie. Everything he had said and done over the last year had instantly replayed in her head, and added with her new knowledge made a whole lot more sense. Not mainly his actions, but the way he behaved, the way he knew their names instantly, the way he knew the house, some side remarks that she had barely noticed when she had heard them, but now seemed to be carrying more significance than anything else he had ever told them.

Her mind was busy comparing everything she knew to the fact that he was her nephew. Too busy to acknowledge the fact that this knowledge did her no good. Too busy to acknowledge that he was gone forever and she would never be able to tell him how proud she was of everything he had done, of the way he had faced everything, all the obstacles in his path including them.

Still she remembered quite clearly how he had told them to look for another whitelighter. He had sounded completely indifferent and had orbed out right afterwards, but when he had said it, she had noticed something odd. His expression wasn't as indifferent as his tone, she had seen reluctance in his face, maybe even regret, even though her initial confusion at what he had said had made her forget about these details. Now they stood out all too clearly to her.

He had known. He had known that he would die.

But two questions were standing out to her. The first was: How did he die? Was it really a disease like Wyatt had said? Or something different? She couldn't forget the fact that Chris had thought he was evil. Had Wyatt perhaps… She dearly hoped not. He had not been nice, but evil enough to kill his own brother? Probably not. At least that was what she wanted to believe. The second question was: Whose daughter was the young girl whose name they hadn't even been told so far?

She heard distantly that Phoebe was still rambling on about something, and she had the feeling that her sister hadn't even thought about that. If the girl really was Chris' cousin, then she was either her daughter or Phoebe's. But then how would she get the power to shimmer?

Paige wondered how Piper and Leo were faring. They probably had as much trouble processing the information as she had. It was simply too much in one instant. She knew that the only reason Phoebe kept on filling the air with rather pointless babbling was to keep herself busy so she wouldn't have to face the implications of everything that had happened this day.

Paige knew she had a hard time believing all of it. She would've been deeply sorry had their neurotic whitelighter died, because even though she hadn't always been sure whether he was trustworthy, she had somehow liked him all the time. She would've been overjoyed to find out he was her nephew under different circumstances. In combination it was simply unbelievable.

She also didn't have enough information. They were trying to find Wyatt, the girl and Chris, but she had no idea what would happen then. But doing something at least gave her the impression they weren't just accepting faith.

Hopefully they could do something to change it.

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"You can't accept that!", Phenola yelled at her older cousin, who was staring at Chris' body with a hard determination on her face. He hadn't reacted to her protests when the demon had been there, and she wondered what he would do now.

"Why not?", he snapped at her angrily. "Do you want him to stay dead? It's the best idea we have."

"I think it isn't," Phenola snapped back. "I heard of her kind of necromancy, that is not a solution."

"Oh did you hear of it, now?", Wyatt asked with sarcasm thick in his voice, finally looking up. "Just a minute ago you said you had no idea that was possible."

It was true, she had said she didn't know it. "Well I remember now. I did hear of it. And what I heard is bad. They don't revive people, they reanimate them."

"And where would be the difference?", Wyatt replied without patience. Why the hell was she so stubborn? She had been eager to save him before, but now she was backing out? Maybe she didn't care as much about Chris as she had said she did.

"They reanimate the body, without the soul. They create zombies. Undead."

"She said she would connect the soul with the body, so there is no problem," Wyatt said stubbornly.

"And you believe that?", Phenola asked incredulously. Was he really stupid enough to believe anything some demon told him?

"Yes," he said and glared at her.

"I didn't think you were that stupid. But assuming she would succeed, what about that payment she demanded?", Phenola asked pointedly. "What if she wants your soul or something?"

"Well, after she's done and everything is ok, I just kill her," Wyatt informed her in a cold voice.

"And you really think she won't consider that possibility? She'll do some trick on everything so that you can't kill her. Besides, how did she even know that he was your brother? She's probably planned her involvement in this well. You can't trust demons," Phenola yelled. Was he really that stupid or was he just pretending to be?

"Says you," he replied with an icy glare.

She froze for a moment. He couldn't really mean that, now could he? But he did and she knew it. They didn't call him evil for no reason, and being cruel on purpose was one of his strengths even when it was just by using words. But then she did have a demon in the family now didn't she? She could be just as cruel as Wyatt if she wanted to. Though she rarely did.

"That's beside the point, now is it?", she asked with a voice that matched the cold of his. "You're not doing this because you want to save him. It doesn't matter to you that he's dead now is he? You only care about yourself, ever have, and you simply can't deal with the fact that he died because you failed." He stared at her incredulously for a moment, maybe stunned that she was able to rub into wounds like that, but maybe also because there was a little truth in what she said, no matter how hard he tried to deny it. But she didn't leave him time to reply and went on, "Because you really did fail. You killed him with that stupid idea of yours." She yelled the last part.

For a moment he could do nothing but stare at the young girl of which he had always believed she was a quite nice and gentle person. Then his eyes narrowed. "You agreed with the plan," he pointed out. "You thought it was logical and reasonable and that we should do it. This isn't just my fault." The last sentence wasn't really addressed to her but more to himself. She had hit the sore spot with her remarks. He did blame himself, and he felt the only way he could ever look into the mirror again was by fixing what he had messed up.

"Maybe it wasn't just your fault. But maybe you can make things a little better by doing the right thing now," Phenola now said a little more gentle than before.

"What do you mean?", he asked and for the first time some of his confusion and fear at the situation was evident in his behavior.

"I don't Chris would want this. Would want a demon to resurrect him or whatever," Phenola explained to him, hoping she was finally getting through. "And besides I can't stand the thought of seeing some evil soulless thing bearing Chris' face," she added much more quietly.

He looked at her and for a second both understood the motivation of the other. And finally Wyatt realized that he wasn't the only one that this was hard on. He realized that if he didn't behave the way he did she would probably look for some very deep hole vanish in it and just spend her life sobbing until the end of time. He was just making it harder on her by trying to revive him when she believed it would do no good, and just make accepting Chris' death harder on both of them.

But he knew he could prove her wrong. He had to prove her wrong. He didn't believe that all hope was lost. He couldn't. If he actually forced himself to believe that this was all real, that Chris was not coming back, no matter what he did and that all the years he had spent trying to look for a way to find a cure had been for nothing he would probably lose his sanity.

He couldn't give up and he wouldn't. Both for his own and Chris' sake.

"I can't let go. I can't accept any of this without even trying to change it," Wyatt told her.

A small tear was running down Phin's face. She made no move to wipe it away. "He had accepted it," she stated simply. She remembered so clearly how he had told her to accept it, too and he would've wanted Wyatt to do the same as well. She could not imagine what it must've been like for Chris all these years knowing he would die from this disease and do nothing about it. But he had accepted his fate. He had accepted that he could do nothing to prolong his time, and chose to make the best out of the time he had.

"Maybe he has, but I haven't," Wyatt said in a tone that reminded in absolutely no way of the menacing voice of an evil ruler. It was more like the voice of a broken man.

"He would want you to. He was really touched when he found out you cared," Phin said, remembering her conversation with Chris just a few short hours ago, when there had still been hope.

Wyatt looked startled at that. "What? Did he think I wouldn't?" He had spent so much time, trying to save Chris and all this time his younger brother had thought he meant nothing to him? How could he have misjudged him so badly? But then the older witch remembered their encounter when Bianca had died. He didn't need to be a genius to divine where Chris got the impression that Wyatt wouldn't care. He hadn't exactly been friendly, and he still scolded himself for his behavior. He had been angry, but nothing could justify the way he had acted. He had been angry because Chris had gotten the idea he needed to be changed, he had been angry because Chris had had the idea to travel to the past and he had been angry that Chris had never understood his motivation. But he had had no right to treat him that way.

Phenola said nothing. She felt that she finally had a moment to grieve. Before Chris had left for the past he had said goodbye to her, knowing full well that he probably would never return. That was why the spell he had used had been a one way door. Because he had thought he wouldn't need a way back. _And he didn't, _Phenola thought sadly. Somehow that thought made her even more sad and she began to sob quietly, more tears running down her cheeks once again. This hopelessness, the thought of never seeing Chris returning was what had driven Bianca who had loved him more than anything else to join Wyatt because she had felt he was the only one who could get him back.

But being the evil ruler of the world did not give him the power to stop destiny.

"I'm going to accept the necromancer's offer," Wyatt suddenly said and interrupted Phin's thoughts.

"What?", she asked bewildered. She had thought he understood. Thought he had realized that it was better for Chris to have some peace than some mad attempt at saving him that had no chance of succeeding. But she had been wrong. Wyatt had never been someone to accept things, most of all not things he didn't like.

"I know you think it's foolish, but I have to try, ok? I could never forgive myself if I didn't," he said. His voice sounded almost pleading, desperate for her to understand. Maybe he wanted her to see his point of view and accept it, helping him even. He probably saw that this was not the best way, and he sought reassurance. But she wouldn't give him any.

And that put them on opposite sides once again.

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Neema turned the small bottle between two of her fingers that had now assumed their lizard like appearance once again. The liquid changed colors depending on the way the dim light in the room fell on it and also depending on the way it was shaken.

"Amazing potion, isn't it?", she asked pensively. Her apprentice, a young and incredibly small demon who had light fur didn't answer, assuming the question was rhetorical, which it was.

"Pity it didn't get a chance to work, now is it?", Neema added with a small grin, revealing lines of sharp teeth that had been hidden beneath her human glamour before.

"Would it have?" her apprentice asked, suddenly interested. The young demon had a female sounding voice, even though Neema wasn't entirely sure that this kind of demons even had genders.

"Oh yes. I'm not entirely certain if it would've cured the disease, but it would have revived the boy. Probably still could, I don't really think there's a very tight time limit", Neema explained, shaking the bottle and watching two different shades of blue separating from each other only to be mixed again.

"Well, if it would've worked, how did you get it? And why didn't it?", the feline demon inquired further. She wasn't informed about the entire plan, and mostly not about the parts that had already been finished.

"Well, it would've worked if I hadn't gotten it. I used a rather interesting spell to make the potion transfer here instead of the bloodstream of the boy. So it had no chance of working to begin with. And goldilocks didn't notice." The grin had grown wider and now affected the yellow eyes with slits as pupils as well.

"Why? What do you even want with the boy? Do you really want to bring him back?"

"Oh most definitely not. I want the body. I never had the chance to work on the body of someone this powerful before, and it would definitely prove interesting. Besides I can probably use the boy's blood to create the potion that could kill the twice blessed one. I don't yet know what I would to with that, but I'm certain there would be someone willing to buy a vanquishing potion for him."

"Pity the body won't be in too good a state though," she continued. "Do you know why the Cretsa even spread that disease?"

A quick glance towards her apprentice told her that she was shaking her head. "It's because they need it to feed. Their digestive system can only process what has been killed by the disease. So the only thing they do is run around the world infecting random people with the disease. It changes the bodies naturally, so they can eat it. Another state would definitely be preferable for my studies, but well, I just have to accept that, I guess."

"So you try to deceive someone of whom you know is the source of all evil in the future. Sounds risky," her apprentice commented.

"Well, no risk, no fun"

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A/N: Despite my expectations it was actually fun to write on here. I might do that again. Please tell me what you think and whether there is still anyone reading this.


	6. Personal items

Death lurking within

Chapter 6

A/N: So over a year pause this time. This story really is slow going for me. Hopefully I will be able to start writing regularly again in general. I really want to finish this story, but I can't promise that it will be soon, but rest assured, that I really do want to finish.

Disclaimer: Who cares whether I write this or not? Seriously. Anyway, me no own. But that's ok, if I said I did no one would believe it anyway.

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It was still raining, as it had been the entire day. It seemed a little bit like fate to Phenola, even though she knew that bad things could happen just as well on sunny days, and that no matter of how magically powerful she and the people she knew were, that would not motivate the weather to care about any of them. She didn't really mind the rain, anyway. It seemed a little refreshing, one little thing that had not changed, and would not change in her life, no matter how unsteady everything else that happened to her was. It kind of reminded her of the fact, that this was reality. Even though everything that was real to her wasn't something she really cared to accept as anything other than a nightmare.

So she didn't mind standing outside in the rain. Even though doing that would probably earn her a cold, or maybe even pneumonia, if it was only long enough. Considering, that would be kind of ironic. All that hassle about this very bad disease might actually make her sick.

But she didn't really need that to happen, now. So she finally decided to ring the doorbell she had been looking at for almost ten minutes now.

The door opened after only a little waiting and she found herself staring into her mother's face.

A feeble "Hello", was the first thing she managed to say. Phoebe seemed very surprised, and Phin knew she had every right to be suspicious. She definitely hadn't made a good first impression on any of the Charmed Ones. That much was certain at least.

"Why are you here?", Phoebe asked the young girl, a wary, but not quite suspicious look in her eyes.

"Because…" Phenola hesitated. Why was she here, anyway? "I need help", she concluded after what seemed minutes to her, even though it hadn't been nearly that much.

Phoebe wasn't really sure of what to do, or to say, or even to think. The teenager definitely made a pitiable appearance. Puffy faced, red eyed from crying and completely soaked through with rain. And she looked so sad and lost that an inexplicable instinct immediately told Phoebe to hug the girl. But she resisted that instinct. Still, she stepped away from the door just far enough for her to pass through and made a small gesture with her head, to tell her to get inside.

Phenola immediately felt grateful and somehow better. Entering the warm mansion suddenly made her realize how cold it had really been outside. And somewhere deeper inside her was that feeling that running to mommy could somehow make stuff right. She knew it was silly, but that childish feeling that her mom could to anything was still there, even after all those years when she hadn't seen her. And even though she knew that there were indeed things that could bring a Charmed One down and had. Even if they hadn't yet here.

Without really thinking about it Phin went into the living room and sat down on the couch. Phoebe didn't have any objections to that, apparently and sat down in front of her on the other side of the couch table. They looked at each other quietly, for a moment neither saying a word.

Just when Phin felt like she had to say something to end the silence, and to explain herself, and also needed to do something to stop her instincts from telling her mother everything at once, which would probably not help her situation at all, Paige entered.

"So who was that at the door?", she asked in the direction of Phoebe, but once she spotted Phin she just said. "Oh", quietly and sat down as well.

The situation had gone from uncomfortable to even more uncomfortable. Phoebe was still staring at Phin, who suddenly realized that she was trying to get a read of her emotions. Surpressing her emotions, or at least partially to keep them from being read by outsiders (or rather her mother) had been second nature to Phin for such a long time that she didn't even notice it when she did it anymore. She knew, however, that she really needed the Charmed Ones' trust if she wanted to accomplish anything here right now, because her options alone were very limited. And without opening up that trust would be hard to gain, so she let her barriers down just a little.

Phoebe leaned back almost immediately, apparently satisfied and more relaxed now.

Paige, who hadn't been aware of what had been going on right then, suddenly asked, "So whose daughter are you?"

Phin stared at her, startled. She had kind of expected accusations, or requests for more information on what exactly had happened to Chris an what to do about it. Her own identity hadn't struck her as a matter of any importance. "Phoebe's" she said in a low voice, without looking at her mother.

She heard her gasp and exclaim in surprise: "What? You're my daughter?"

"That's what she just said, genius," Paige said with a sigh. "Cole?", she inquired further, while Phoebe was too busy staring at her daughter in disbelief to ask any further questions. Phin just nodded. She felt extremely uncomfortable, and she could almost hear Chris' voice in her ear, scolding her for revealing so much about the future. But he wasn't here right now, and so she would just have to go about this in her own way.

"I… wow… " was the comment that came from Phoebe, but Phin decided to focus her attention on Paige for the moment, since there was a much higher chance of getting any help there. "I need your help", she said with a pleading tone in her voice.

"What happened? Where were you and Wyatt before?", asked Paige in a calm and controlled manner, that surprised even herself a little. It was probably just easier to deal with the situation at hand efficiently than focusing on the whole weird problems associated with it.

"Well, we were at some kind of Underworld cave. I guess Wyatt picked out a random place to get away from you", she tossed a quick look at Paige "No offense", she added. Paige just nodded for her to go on. "And then this demon showed up. She claimed to be a Necromancer and said she could revive Chris. I don't believe that, and I think it would be better for him to stay… " the word dead would not cross her lips. "where he is now, rather than some demon playing around with his body…"

"No one can revive the dead", Phoebe said, apparently finally having gotten over the fact that her teenage daughter was sitting there, and especially the fact that she was apparently getting back together with Cole. Cole… she definitely didn't want to go into that whole thing again.

"I know, I told Wyatt, but he doesn't want to listen. He's determined to get Chris back, which is kind of nice, but he's going to do anything for it… and well, he doesn't have any trouble working with demons, I mean it's what he does, so he doesn't see how that's bad, so it makes sense from his angle, but he has to be stopped, that demon wants something bad, and I know it, and he just wants to trust her, for no reason at all…" the pace of he talking had picked up all the way through her speech and she stopped, once she realized she was rambling. "But I can't stop him on my own", she concluded, slower and more quiet again.

"Whoa, that was kind of fast", Phoebe said and held her hands up to slow her down a little.

"I… I just… you know, I don't want Chris to be gone, I want him back, too, but not this way, but if it actually did work it would be great, but I can't believe it will. I mean… I kind of have this responsibility now, to… you know… respect Chris' wishes, kind of make sure he's got his peace and everything… I feel like I owe him", Phin said, without taking much note of her mother's comment.

"Okay", Paige breathed out. "Then we'll have to stop this demon. I agree, I mean, getting him back would be great, but that demon would be a very stupid one if she actually wanted to get someone back who fights demons as viciously and systematically as Chris does..." she felt the need to correct her use of tenses concerning Chris, but she couldn't bring herself to actually do that, so she just let the words stand the way they were.

Phin just nodded, and just when Paige was about to add something, they heard footsteps on the stairs and Piper entered their field of view.

She seemed to be in a quite pitiable state. Something about her seemed completely disheveled, even though her clothes didn't seem off. The look on her face seemed a little haunted, and even though she had lived in this house for just about her entire life, the way she looked around the room reminded the others of a newborn horsebaby. She had a certain surprised look on his face, as if it was the first time she really saw her surroundings, and yet there seemed to be (and Phoebe was not the only one who noticed) a quiet resolve about her, as if she had accepted that she would have to face her nightmare and live through it in order to wake up again.

"The crystal just did the weirdest thing", she said in a tone that was meant to be casual but came around feeble and false. "At first there was nothing, and then it started pointing to our house, so I don't know, maybe they're closer than we think, or… " she stopped right in the middle of her sentence when she spotted Phin sitting on the couch. The look that crept on her face now was strange. She didn't really seem to disapprove of her sitting there, but it was all too obvious that she wasn't really eager about it either.

There was a tension in the air that made Phin want to sink as deep into the couch as possible, just to get away from that stare. She wasn't sure what to expect of Piper. She guessed that this all had to be hard on her, but what her aunt really felt she couldn't even begin to guess. She sure as hell didn't know what she would've felt or done in that situation. And again Phin had to remind herself that the short interactions she had had with her past family were definitely not ones that would make any good impression on them.

Out of the blue Piper simply broke the tension. "Hi," she said in a quiet, but not at all hostile voice. She seemed more vulnerable than Phin could remember ever seeing her. And she did remember the weeks right after Piper's future self had found out about Chris' disease.

"Hi", Phin shyly said back. Somehow it felt like she would have to say more, but Piper didn't really make any invitation to start a conversation and just came down the stairs quietly, while Phin was completely at a loss for what to say.

She probably could've sat there just staring at Piper for quite a while longer if it hadn't been for Paige, who suddenly brought her attention to the more pressing matters at hand.

"Is there any condition the demon had, that maybe we could interfere with?", she asked in a serious tone to remind everyone of what they were doing here.

"Huh?", was Phoebe's reaction. "How did you get that idea?"

"Well it's just… we shouldn't risk a confrontation with future Wyatt", Paige said, with an intentional stress on the word future. "because I really don't know what kind of trouble that would get us in. And I doubt he'll be too pleased if we just vanquish the demon, so maybe we should just make sure the demon can't do whatever it is she intends."

For some reason no one answered right at that moment and Paige felt all eyes resting on her, with looks on their faces ranging between quiet amazement and outright incredulity. "What? It's a good idea", she exclaimed in annoyance.

"Yes it is… I'm just not used to you… thinking logically like this…" Phoebe said hesitantly.

"Gee thanks", Paige replied in a voice dripping of sarcasm.

"Um… the demon said she needed a personal item of his, to connect his soul with his body. I mean, I doubt she's going to really want to do that, but maybe if Wyatt doesn't find anything, he won't dare to attempt it", Phin speculated.

"Sounds pretty solid. So I guess we just have to make sure all his stuff is here", Paige said.

"You know, if that works, that would be great. So, where do you think we need to look?", Phoebe asked.

"Well, I guess he got some stuff here, like laundry and so on. And we definitely need to check the backroom at P3, that's where he spent most his time in the past", Paige said.

"Ok, so let's split up. I'm going to look around the house to make sure Wyatt can't just steal it from here, and you go get his stuff from P3, ok?", Phoebe planned. She threw a quick look at Piper, to check whether she seemed to be at all interested in joining in on the conversation, but Piper just stood there and listened to what was being said with an unreadable expression.

"Fine by me", Paige agreed. "Do you want to come with me?", she asked Phin, who looked up quickly and nodded.

"Good then let's go", Paige announced and took Phenola's hand to orb them out.

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In the darkness there was a flickering. Almost as if reality had a hiccup and needed to reorganize itself a little, the air at that point seemed to quiver, and suddenly, out of nowhere, two figures appeard. Two very demonic figures.

"Ew! Oh my god!", came the exclamation from one, accompanied by a gagging sound.

"What's the matter with 'your god?'", came the bored reply from the taller of the two demons.

"It's just… I didn't expect it to be this bad…", the small furry creature replied in a subdued tone. She was definitely uncomfortable, even though this was nothing more than any other underworld cave around. Except for the content, of course.

"What? The body? Don't you find him pretty?", Neema asked, and a little sardonic smile crept on her face, as she stepped closer to the large stone, where the younger of the Halliwell brothers lay in the deepest sleep of all.

Slowly the other demon followed her, but careful not to minimize her distance to the corpse to much. "That's just disgusting", she commented, and felt as if the remains of her last meal were up and about to leave her digestive system the way they weren't supposed to.

"Well I always though your kind was carnivorous", Neema said. She chuckled a little when she added, "Carnivores who eat their pray alive, not to forget."

"Well our victims never ever look like that. We're way more cultured", the feline replied, with a note of insult in her voice.

"I'm sure you are", Neema said, even though she doubted that a little, to end the discussion of that certain topic. She leaned closer over the body and looked right into the boy's face. He looked very bad, but that was to be expected, after having been infected, but she could tell, that besides all the wounds and deformations he would have been a handsome young man.

"Where is that 'ally' of yours, anyway?", her apprentice asked, shooting anxious looks all around the cave.

"Running errands", Neema said. Very gently, she extended a hand to touch the face. It was warmer than most of the corpses she usually worked with, a hint to the recency of this particular death. She knew her assistant waited for a more clear specifications, but she wasn't going to give any at the moment.

The dead fascinated her. She had never been fond of killing, never quite found the sense in that, but after they had died, humans suddenly were so much more interesting to her. And not just humans. Dead demons were excellent subjects as well, but it was hard to find a demon that didn't just dissolve upon dieing. And witches… they seemed to be the most interesting of all. Hard to come by, since their families, who were usually witches as well, made sure that the bodies were safe. There were cases, however, like this one, where a witches family could even be used to Neema's advantage.

She looked at the entire body, carefully analyzing all the details visible to her. The condition was bad. Or rather, extraordinary. She wasn't quite sure yet, how all this would impact her work, but she was all about experimenting and learning, so this made her even more eager to start working.

But she couldn't rush things. If she did anything now, she knew she would soon be toast. She needed to take care of the twice blessed one first, before she could really start what she was going to do. Still there were some things she could do now, and examining the body without damaging it was definitely one of them. She wasn't entirely sure how she could explain undressing the body, so she decided not to go as far for the moment. Very gently, to be sure not to do any further damage, she touched one of the places, where the skin looked as though it had been burned. It had a surprisingly smooth texture and seem nearly as bad an injury like this.

"Um… master", she suddenly heard her assistant's feeble voice say.

"I'm busy", the necromancer said, without even bothering to turn around.

"Well, I uh… I think you should turn around. Cause, someone's here…", the little demon stuttered.

Neema turned around this time. Indeed, there was someone there. Two Cretsa demons, ugly as hell, which was of course a given were standing at either side of the feline demon, which made her look even smaller, than she really was. Neema surpressed a sigh. She would really have to teach that girl how to express important information more efficiently.

"Well, this is an unexpected visit", she said slowly and managed a small polite smile. "May I ask what brings you here?"

She wasn't really sure whether to expect an answer or not. Cretsa were, from what she had heard, not very smart, and she had never bothered to find out if they were capable of speaking.

"The boy", one of the creatures said in a rough voice. He didn't seem to be used to speaking, so she guessed amongst each other they had some other form of communication. Not that it mattered.

"Well, I'm afraid you can't have him. He is under the protection of the twice blessed One, and I still need him. I am right in presuming you referring to the dead boy, yes?", Neema said in a very polite but nevertheless kind of cold voice. Maybe her complicated wording was too much for the Cretsa, but she didn't care. She just wanted to be rid of them.

"Yes, dead boy. We want", the Cretsa who had spoken before clarified.

"Well, he's not of any use to you anyhow", Neema said, and threw a glance at the body.

"We eat", the Cretsa said. He said those words with a lot of force, apparently to enforce that they indeed had a use for the body. But still the missing pronoun made the statement seem very ridiculous.

"Well, no. He died before he was killed by your venom, in case you hadn't noticed. That means you can't digest the body anyhow, so you don't need to have him anyway", Neema explained. She really hoped that this argument would make them go away, because she was really not in the mood for a big confrontation with the Cretsa, who, despite their ugliness und limited mental capabilities could be formidable opponents. Especially since she wasn't that much of a demon who did great in open confrontations.

"True", the Cretsa replied and, even though it was hard to tell through the dark green skin covered with a weird mix of scales and blemishes, his expression seemed to darken at that admission. "We know", he added. "But you dead magic."

For a moment Neema was at a loss for what that was supposed to mean. Was that a threat, or maybe a general comment that the world of magic was dieing? She just stared at him bemused, and apparently he seemed to take the hint.

"You raise corpse, so corpse die cretsa way, cretsa eat", he explained, and Neema realized that "dead magic" was supposed to be a simpler word for necromancer.

"And why would I do that?", Neema asked.

"You do", the Cretsa said, and seemed to be very convinced of that.

"Why?", Neema emphasized. That was just annoying. Apart from the point she doubted that she would be able to pull off what they wanted her to do, he didn't even make a good argument for his side. That was just stupid.

"Cretsa make you" Well finally, there was some sort of threat.

"Well, I don't think so. And besides, the disease's progression is supposed to stop at death, so I sincerely doubt that would work your way. Also, I want the body for myself, so it would be stupid for me to comply with you wishes", Neema explained. She doubted she could make them go away with reasoning, but it didn't hurt to try.

"No use to you", the Cretsa commented, and something like an evil smile crept on his face. Or was she imagining that? "We no eat in body state, but you no magic in body state not too"

That was an awfully complicated sentence for a Cretsa and Neema was surprised. Especially since he had a point. The body was hardly useful to her in the sorry state it was in.

"Well, I'll find a way", she lied anyway. The Cretsa weren't supposed to know, that this actually might be a problem for her.

"And besides, you spend your entire time going around the globe infecting random people. Can't you just let this one slide? I'm sure you're prepared you something like this, I mean, the likeliness that someone dies before the disease offs them is not that low.

"Yes. But no random. Boy purpose", the Cretsa said. Neema was beginning to have violent thoughts, just because she wanted to think of a way to make this idiotic demon finally shut up. The way he spoke really bothered her.

"Why did you infect him on purpose?", she asked, because regardless of how he had said it, what he said had piqued her interest.

"Our secret", the Cretsa replied with now almost a playful note in his voice. And without warning both Cretsa disappeared into nothingness.

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"Wow, this is easier than I thought", Paige said. All they had found in the backroom that belonged to Chris was a neatly packed box full of things and a sock that had fallen behind the cupboard.

"Yeah. He's tidy", Phin commented. The two of them hadn't spoken a lot since coming here. Somehow it felt akward, and neither of them knew what to say.

"Do you think that's all of it?", Paige asked. They had spent almost half an hour meticulously looking through the entire room and finding and sorting through everything that was there, whether it could be considered a personal item of Chris'. But apparently he had neatly packed up everything that belonged to him.

"Yeah, I think so", Phin answered. "I guess we should go." Looking through everything and wondering whether it was his or not had been a very strange feeling for her. She used to know all his stuff when they had worked together in the Resistance, but now, everything seemed so far away from her that she felt like she was sniffing around a stranger's stuff.

"Ok", Paige said and nodded. She took the box and got up, but just when she wanted to orb they heard a weird sound. After a moment they realized it were footsteps, and they were getting closer. No one was supposed to be at the club right now, but maybe the bartender had decided to come in early.

Except that it wasn't. Before they could even react to the Footsteps, the door to the little office flew open and future Wyatt entered. Paige was so surprised she almost would've dropped the box.

Wyatt, on the other hand, seemed to be as surprised as they were. For a moment they just stared at each other, but then Wyatt noticed the box and his eyes narrowed to a dangerous look that Phenola knew all too well.

"Is that Chris's?", he asked in a voice that seemed to calm and controlled, but shook slightly with contained anger.

"Yes", Paige said. "It's his personal stuff, and you're not getting it" she finished, and before either of the future Halliwells could react, she grabbed Phin's arm and orbed them out. They did stay materialized long enough, however, to see Wyatt's incredulous look at her audacity slowly turn into a cold fury.

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"Wow, these were nasty", the little feline demon commented.

"True. And weird attitudes", Neema commented and turned back to the body.

"Is it true, that you don't have a use for the body like this?", her assistant asked nervously.

"Well… the condition of the body is an obstacle, but I'll just have to handle that later", she said. "Right now I have more important things to worry about. Like getting that personal item of his"

"What for? You're not planning to resurrect him anyway, so a personal item is irrelevant, isn'T it?"

"Well, you're right, but one thing you have to know about working with a body of a recently deceased the way I do it sometimes can have nasty surprises if you don't take care of certain things", Neema paused, to let her words have some more impact on her assistant. "When someone just died, the connection between the body and the soul is still there. Not nearly as strong as with a living person, of course, but enough to be very annoying to someone like me, because if you start working with the body some strange things can happen as a result of that connection. Especially with strong witches. So I need to do a little séance as a precaution."

"A séance? I thought you don't want the soul."

"I don't. But I do have to make sure, once I start working there is no soul anymore that would interfere."

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A/N: Is that a good cliffie? I'm not sure, because I don't know if it's entirely clear what she wants, but who cares?

I know, not a lot happened in this chapter, but I needed this to set the scene for the action in the next chapter. And yes, I do plan to do a next chapter, and actually to finish. And I don't intend to make another pause of the length of that before.

TBC, please review!


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